


Bonne Chance, Fat Chance

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Bon Cop Bad Cop (2006)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1641317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Better, said MacDuff. "Mountie smugglers.<br/>Martin blinked. "Is this some kind of teen lingo I don't want to know about?<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonne Chance, Fat Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Aderam

 

 

Mounties and

_"Only three shopping days left until Christmas, and the big news is- Nobody gives a  
rat's ass! That's all you hear on the radio anymore, Christmas Christmas Christmas. If it   
doesn't have tinsel, it doesn't have shit. Am I right or am I right?_

_"Now, some people will tell you it's the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all  
men. But can you tell me peace on earth is going to come about if my niece gets the new   
Nintendo Wii? Because from the way I saw people fighting over it in the WalMart aisles,   
I think it'd better at least cause minor miracles._

_"I bet you, loyal listeners, are right now asking yourselves, 'What is this guy's deal? Has  
he not had his shot of holiday cheer? Is he behind on his bowlfuls of jelly? Does he-   
gasp- not like Christmas?'_

_"Don't like it? What's not to like? Spending hundreds of dollars on careful presents for  
my greedy relatives and receiving twenty pairs of socks? Or maybe being stuck in a small   
house with thirty of them, cooking twelve different kinds of foods and then being yelled   
at for forgetting cranberry sauce. You tell me- is Christmas such a great thing?_

_"For those of my listeners who aren't yet fed up to the eyeballs with Christmas, here's  
Bing Crosby with 'White Christmas,' a present from me to you, in the hope it'll tip you   
over the edge into Grinchland with me." _

Martin turned off the radio with a _click_ . He'd been trying to think of a good   
present for Jonathan for weeks. What did a fifteen-year-old boy want for Christmas?   
Apparently, either some insanely expensive piece of technology whose name Martin   
couldn't pronounce, or some other insanely expensive piece of technology whose name   
Martin couldn't pronounce. The choices were somewhat limited.

Oh sure, he still had three days to think of something. He looked at his list. So far, he'd   
written "Socks" and "underwear." With a heavy sigh, he crossed out the "socks."

"Not interested."

"I haven't even told you about the case yet," MacDuff protested mildly. Martin knew   
enough to distrust that mildness. Brian MacDuff was the kind of unpleasant bastard who   
succeeded in life by presenting a PC façade to the world. Didn't mean he wasn't a bastard   
underneath.

"I am on desk duty," Martin pronounced. "Desk duty. It is a reward for my years of loyal   
service. So unless you have a document that needs filing or a report that needs reviewing,   
I suggest you ask one of the other offices. Try Perkins."

Perkin's head popped up a few desks away, like a prairie dog that had heard a subsonic   
whistle. MacDuff and Martin eyed him. Perkins looked like an old-fashioned wooden   
puppet with tangled strings- a collection of limbs going off in every direction but the   
right one. He could go for a walk to the nearest Tim Hortons for coffee and come back an   
hour later with two twisted ankles, a black eye, and the wrong brand of sweetener.

"It's a big case," MacDuff wheedled. "And I know I can trust you with it after the last   
one."

"After the last one I have three citations for recklessness and a persistent ache in my   
lumbar vertebrae," Martin snapped.

MacDuff delivered his trump card. "It's bootleggers."

"Bootleggers?" Martin repeated. Now _there_ was a case. "As in one of the biggest   
threats to our nation's industry? As in the billion-dollar industry siphoning profits to   
organized crime?"

"Sometimes you sound like an encyclopedia, Ward."

"You want me to go after bootleggers?" Martin thought carefully. This was the sort of   
thing that could make a career. "This is not the sort of case the OPP generally handles.   
What put this in our backyard?"

"I knew you'd see it. It's those keen instincts of yours that make you such a fine   
detective, Martin." MacDuff clapped a hand on Martin's shoulder. "And you are indeed   
right. There are some slight complications."

"Aren't there always?" Martin unobtrusively stepped back.

There were footsteps coming along the corridor- and a voice, swearing louder and louder   
in French. A voice Martin recognized. He looked at MacDuff. MacDuff smiled weakly.

"This is the complication?"

"I resent that," David Bouchard announced, stepping into the wardroom. His shirt was as   
flashy as always- an unbuttoned silver dress shirt over a black wifebeater. Martin   
winced. He'd seen less obtrusive apparel on a teenager arrested on his way back from a   
rave. He looked down at his own sober black suit.

"Another bout of provincial cooperation?" he asked MacDuff.

MacDuff shrugged a politician's what-can-you-do? "The bootleggers are operating out of   
both Quebec and Ontario. We've found their products in both Toronto and Montreal, and   
a search of Ottawa and Quebec City would probably bring up more. A gesture of   
solidarity- say by teaming up two representatives who have previously proven successful   
together- goes a long way in today's political climate."

Martin struggled with his expression. "Fine. So what is it? Pirated DVDs? Camcorder or   
Hong Kong version? Or are we going after the Christmas Barbies with the surprise lead   
poisoning inside?"

"Better," said MacDuff. "Mountie smugglers."

Martin blinked. "Is this some kind of teen lingo I don't want to know about?"

"He means Mountie souvenirs. Come to Canada, go home with a little wooden Mountie   
statue- Mountie T-shirt- Mountie snowglobe," Bouchard interrupted.

"I've seen the two-for-ten-dollar stands at Niagara Falls," Martin said. "But they're   
souvenirs. How can you bootleg Mountie souvenirs?"

"The contract for licensing and approving RCMP souvenirs is held by the Disney   
corporation since it won the bidding in 1995," MacDuff said. "Recently we have had an   
upsurge in unlicensed products flooding the marketplace."

"The Disney corporation?" Martin repeated.

Bouchard pulled out a cigarette. "So the Canadian government sold the rights to produce   
an integral symbol of Canadian culture to an American company. I'm not surprised, but-   
ah- why do I care?"

"It's a felony to bootleg these souvenirs," MacDuff snapped. "It is tarnishing our national   
image to sell below-par products."

"It's a felony no-one cares about," Martin said. "Mountie dolls? Hardly a global concern,   
is it? And besides, it's three days to Christmas. My holidays start tomorrow."

"Not until the end of this case, they don't," MacDuff said. "Somebody complains, the   
government gets in on the complaining, and we need to show results by the new year. So   
you and Detective Boo-chard need to solve this and until you do, you're on active duty."

"You think I'm going to miss Christmas with my daughter for this?" Bouchard said.   
"You don't have the right to order me to do that!"

"Of course not," MacDuff said, looking shocked. "That would be a violation of   
jurisdiction. No, Captain LeBoeuf has the right to order you to do that, and he has." His   
teeth flashed above his neat beard.

"Why aren't the Mounties handling this?" Martin asked.

"Because they don't have the time to get their precious hands dirty," MacDuff snapped.   
"So we are going to assist them by solving their case for them. Officer Janowski has the   
case reports. And Happy Holidays"

*

Bouchard flipped through a report. "Wow, you guys have a lot of paperwork," he mused.   
"How many pages are there to these things? And this is only a report for soliciting. I'd   
hate to see your murder cases."

"Don't have the time for it," Martin muttered. "Don't care, more likely. I can't help but   
feel this is some kind of vague punishment from God."

Martin waved that away. "Why didn't you call Iris?"

Bouchard looked up. "What?"

"Iris. My sister. The one you were- getting friendly with five months ago. You never   
called her."

"I've been busy," Bouchard said.

"Hockey season is over."

"Hockey is never over," said Bouchard, "it may be off the rink sometimes, but it is   
always on on the rink in our hearts."

"I can't say I understand that," Martin said.

"Of course you don't. Your team is the Maple Leafs."

" Well, whatever your heart was doing, your voice could have bothered to call. What   
have you been busy with?"

Bouchard looked vaguely uncomfortable. "Things." He paused. He looked away. "Did   
she talk about me?"

"No, she found a twenty-two-year-old gymnast to horrify her family with," Martin said.   
"Which is beside the point. She is my little sister and you messed with her."

"You flirted with my wife!" Bouchard retorted.

"Ex-wife!"

Unconsciously, the two men got closer, their voices rising.

"You nearly got me blown up!"

"You nearly got me shot!"

"Yeah," said Bouchard, lapsing into nostalgia, "good times." He looked around. "Where   
are the vending machines?"

"This is a police station, not a bus station. We don't have vending machines," Martin said   
patiently.

"So where do you get your coffee from? Or do you only drink chamomile tea at work,   
carefully steeped within an eco-friendly thermos?"

Martin harrumphed, not wanting to give any ground. But it would be too cruel to deprive   
a man of coffee. "We can get some on the way," he said.

"The way?"

Martin pushed the reports at him. "If you'd been reading these, instead of critiquing their   
lines of inquiry, you'd have seen that sixty-five percent of the bootlegging reports logged   
in Toronto were reported on Spadina."

"And what's that when that's at home?" Bouchard asked.

"Chinatown," Martin said.

*

_"I don't see how you can say Christmas is a bad thing. It's a time for togetherness. A  
time for love."_

_"Yeah, you try giving someone your love for Christmas and see how it goes. Unless love  
is expressed through ridiculously high credit card bills, no one wants to hear about it."_

Martin turned down the radio as his car pulled up to the order window. "Welcome to Tim   
Horton's, what can I get for you?" a tinny voice asked.

"A large coffee, two creams, two sugars," Bouchard yelled from the passenger seat,   
leaning across Martin to do so. "And a sour-cream glazed donut."

"Medium black coffee, no sugar, and a raisin bran muffin," Martin added.

They paid and Martin drove cautiously out of the drivethrough, heading downtown. "You   
know," he said, nodding at the coffee Bouchard held, "in Ontario, we call that a double-  
double."

"Really? In Quebec, we call that rat food," Bouchard said, indicating Martin's muffin   
with a disdainful finger.

They parked a few streets behind Spadina and walked up. Stands clogged the sidewalk   
despite the cold weather and piles of slush. There were fruit and vegetable stands, stands   
with clearly pirated Hong Kong DVDs- even a cart loaded with frilly examples of   
lingerie. Downtown was always crowded, but the areas around the carts were especially   
busy. Tiny Chinese grandmothers haggled over squash, almost buried inside their bright   
winter coats. Slouching teens in hoodies, their parka jackets hanging open in defiance of   
the cold weather, kicked moodily at the slushy ground as they headed for Kensington   
Market. Dainty Middle Eastern girls laughed over a particularly kitschy Hello Kitty alarm   
clock, their drawn-on eyebrows arching. Business-men and -women escaping Bay Street   
for their lunch hour created a sober background in their sleek black woolen coats.

"The hardest thing about bootleggers is they look like they're amateurs- makeshift street-  
corner tables, young staff- but in reality they're highly mobile and flexible," Martin said.   
"They can set up or break down a stall in a matter of minutes, and their production costs   
are so low they're often wiling to abandon their merchandise, meaning their escape rate is   
high."

"The guy with the beard back there was right," Bouchard said. "You do sound like an   
encycylopedia."

"This may not be much of a case," Martin said, "but it behooves us to do it with all due   
diligence."

"Right. When we're done being duly diligent, can we stop at a mall somewhere? There's   
something I need to pick up."

"Stop at a mall- you want to go Christmas shopping on police time?"

"No, the police want me to work on Christmas shopping time," David replied. Something   
up the street caught his eye. "Hold on." He walked ahead.

"What are you doing?" Martin asked, exasperated.

Bouchard looked up from picking through a tray of costume jewellery. A garish fake-  
gold unicorn pendant dangled from his fingers. The owner of the stall, a middle-aged   
Asian woman- Martin couldn't tell if she was Chinese, Korean, or something else- smiled   
and made encouraging noises. "Do you think Gabrielle would like this?" Bouchard asked,   
putting down the awful necklace and picking up an awful pink backpack with a mermaid   
on it instead.

"I make it a point never to buy presents at a shop with less than one square meter of   
counter space," Martin snapped. "Could you concentrate?"

"I think she'll like it," Bouchard said, hefting the backpack on one shoulder.

"You look ridiculous. Can we work now?"

"Already am. The shopkeeper says-" Bouchard pointed up the street "-she's seen people   
hawking little red statues up there." He clapped Martin on the shoulder. "Try to look like   
a tourist, and not a cop," he said. "It's easy for me, but I don't know if the stick up your   
ass can be removed. It's been there for so long you're probably codependent."

"Ah hah," Martin said, the most sarcastic I'm-not-amused sound he knew how to make.   
"Are you going to buy Gabrielle some pirated DVDs too, really round out the Christmas   
present set?"

"What, you don't think Gabrielle will like this? Just because I bought it in Chinatown   
and not at le Chateau?" Bouchard shook his head. "She's not that shallow."

"Please, she's what, nine? That's the easy age for Christmas presents. She'd love   
anything if it came in a box with a bow on it. Wait until she hits fifteen, and nothing you   
choose or say or do is right, and you're lucky if she doesn't make you drive round to the   
back of the school to drop her off."

"What a purely hypothetical situation," Bouchard said. "Am I hearing the tinkling   
footsteps of the Ghost of Christmas Present Angst?"

Martin wavered- considered bluffing it out- then confessed, "I have no idea what to get   
Jonathan. You have it easy."

"I have it easy? I have to cross the great gender divide into the realms of tutus. You're   
buying for a boy."

Martin waved a hand. "Yes. And?"

"And it's possible that, far back in the reaches of time, you used to be a boy," Bouchard   
said. "Just get him what you wanted when you were his age."

"That's what I did last year," Martin said. "I got him a real chemistry set. I would have   
killed for that at his age. You could practically build your own nuclear reactor with it. He   
said thanks and then put it in his wardrobe. Last time I checked there were mushrooms   
growing on it."

"Ah, you were one of _those_ kids," Bouchard said. "I don't know why I'm   
surprised."

They'd reached the stand- six milk crates stacked on top of each other with a dirty old   
tablecloth thrown on top. An array of crudely carved RCMP statues covered it. They   
were about the size of Russian dolls. Martin picked one up and goggled at its ugliness. It   
looked like it had been carved out of a tree branch. Limbs were more a suggestion than a   
fact, and it had a distinct list to the left, as if the government of Canada had begun   
proactively recruiting people with vertigo. Jonathan could have done a better job of   
painting it when he was six. The red of the Mountie's coat straggled onto his neck and   
lower face. He turned it over. On the base, in uneven permanent marker letters, the words   
"SOVENIR OF CANADA."

"Someone should tell them American spelling doesn't work that way," he murmured to   
Bouchard.

"How much?" Bouchard asked the kid behind the milk crates, who couldn't have been   
more than fifteen.

"Thirty dollars?" the kid said uncertainly.

Bouchard cocked an eyebrow. "Thirty dollars? You'd be lucky to get ten."

"I can't haggle," the kid said. "It's thirty."

"How about six months to a year?" Martin said, cutting in and flashing his badge.   
"Where did you get these statues?"

"A guy," the kid stammered. "He said I could keep ten percent of the sales. Not that I'm   
selling many."

"At thirty dollars? I'm not surprised. You can buy these things down the street three for   
ten dollars," Martin said. As he put the statue down, a faint rattling attracted his attention.   
He shook the ugly thing gingerly. It made a shifting shushing sound, like a bottle full of   
sand. Martin shot Bouchard a look.

"Where do you meet the guy to settle up?" Bouchard demanded.

"Here," the kid faltered. "At around two every day."

Last time Martin had looked at his watch, it had been 1.30. He and Bouchard scanned the   
crowd of Christmas shoppers, almost all of whom looked stressed and tired and as if they   
could be possibly homicidal. A hatchet-faced brunette shoved past them. A group of   
college students tripped their way into one of the Chinese restaurants. A heavyset man   
with a dark beard and mustache turned and ran.

"Is that him?" Martin demanded. The kid nodded.

"Shit"

" _du merde du shit du merde du_ "

" _Tabernacle!_ " they finished. Bouchard took off after the suspect at a flat run.   
Martin remained behind a moment. "This is why we have a Labour Standards Board!" he   
advised the kid. He grabbed one of the ugly statues. "Evidence. Don't go anywhere," he   
said, before following Bouchard.

He caught up with him within a couple of hundred meters. "Trinkets that ugly-" Martin   
panted.

"-not even tourists are going to buy them, especially not at those prices," Bouchard   
finished. "Those Mounties are drug mules!"

*

They pounded down Spadina and saw the suspect turn onto Queen. "If he ducks into one   
of those stores, we'll have him," Martin shouted. "These are boutiques! They barely have   
enough space to turn around in! And people complain about exorbitant rent hikes in   
downtown real estate!"

"Or he could hop on one of the buses," Bouchard said.

"That's not a bus, it's a streetcar!" Martin snapped.

"All right, then. Or he could hop on one of those streetcars," Bouchard corrected himself   
amiably.

"Why are you so obsessed with the streetcars?" Martin asked.

"I don't know, maybe because our suspect just _hopped on one of those streetcars_ ,"   
Bouchard yelled.

"What?" Martin said.

"Relax. It's not like he can hijack one," Bouchard said reasonably. "They run on rails.   
We just follow it until it reaches the depot."

"Have you seen the number of people who get on and off those things?" Martin said.   
"And how do you expect us to follow it? Our car- my car- is in a parking garage four   
blocks back, presumably even now getting keyed by teenagers with ADHD!"

Bouchard crossed his arms, the backpack dangling from one shoulder. "I thought we   
could follow it on foot, seeing as the traffic in Toronto drives more slowly than an old   
lady with bunions."

"I suppose you'd prefer to be in Montreal, where we could all drive like suicidal   
NASCAR racers on a downswing!"

"If it meant being at home for Christmas with my little girl, YES!" Bouchard yelled.

"Well, if we were in Montreal, then our guy would already have gotten away."

"I don't want to interrupt a good tirade, but I'd like to point out he has gotten away.   
Nearly."

Martin looked helplessly down the street, where the red bulk of the streetcar was rapidly   
disappearing, then started running again.

*

Charlyn Thomas had seen a lot in her twenty years of driving for the TTC. During rush   
hour, people would run after a streetcar and bang on its doors to be let in, never mind the   
fact that they were running in traffic, or than another one would be along in ten minutes   
or so. No, they were in far too much of a hurry to wait.

She had, however, never seen anyone actually leap onto the back of a streetcar and start   
inching their way around the outside to the doors. "Christmas sure does make some   
people crazy," she said to her appreciative audience of none. Her passengers were far too   
exhausted from holiday shopping to be able to respond.

Outside, his hands smarting from gripping the cold metal of the streetcar, Martin swore.   
The people inside the streetcar observed him with all the round-eyed wonder they would   
give a shark in an aquarium, and made absolutely no move to help. "Police!" he shouted,   
trying to bring his badge out with one hand without losing his grip and falling off. He   
looked around for Bouchard, who was nowhere to be seen.

The streetcar groaned as it came to a stop near The Bay, and Martin swung inside as the   
side doors opened. The streetcar was crammed full with people and bags. Martin scanned   
the crowd- and the heavyset man broke out, heading to the front as he shoved past people.   
Martin tried to catch up with him, but he couldn't elbow fast enough, and the heavyset   
man ducked out the front door-

-when Bouchard hurtled into him. The bearded face turned, surprised, before Bouchard   
tackled him to the ground. He put him in a classic headlock and began to handcuff him.

"How did you get there?" Martin puffed, tie askew and out of breath. Bouchard nodded at   
a skateboard, upside-down and spinning its wheels on the icy street. "Requisition," he   
said briefly.

This was not covered in TTC regulations, Charlyn knew, but she had to respond to the   
situation somehow. "That'll be $2.75," she said to Martin.

*

"Good job!" MacDuff said cheerily. "You certainly put the fear of God into that man!   
Although was it really necessary to cause congestion in one of the busiest streets of   
downtown Toronto three days before Christmas?"

"For a bust of this magnitude?" Martin said. "I think a little inconvenience can be borne."   
The adrenaline was wearing off, letting him resume his normal cool attitude, but his body   
still sparked with excitement.

"Oh yes, a bust of this magnitude," MacDuff said. "That man will certainly never be   
selling the dolls his mother makes to raise money for her nursing home again. Not with a   
busted collarbone and fears of psychological damage."

"Is that what he told you?" Bouchard said. "Dolls from a nursing home?"

"It was certainly substantiated by the fact that his mother testified to it."

"So she's in on this too," Martin said. "A family of bootleggers. We've seen stranger   
things."

"The attendants at the home testified she'd been doing it for years."

"Why use school kids in a downtown area? That's a little shady," Bouchard said.

"Mr. Tamberlon said he wanted to give children a chance at a holiday job, the way he'd   
had as a little boy, selling wrapping paper door to door with his little red cheeks aglow.   
He thought he could get the best sales downtown, but kept getting chased out of the   
Eaton Centre for soliciting," MacDuff said. "So he set up in Chinatown, where he   
thought he'd be safer."

"Why did he run then?" Bouchard demanded. "Innocent men don't run."

"They do if they see a plainclothes police officer flashing his gun around in a threatening   
manner," MacDuff said. "And they keep running when they notice they're being   
followed by said plainclothes police officer."

"What about the price?" Martin asked. "Thirty dollars for an ugly doll?"

"The nursing home needs a new roof," MacDuff said, getting grimmer and grimmer.

"The Quebec connection," Bouchard said. "You expect me to believe an old granny sells   
her bootlegged souvenirs in two provinces?"

"Mrs. Tamberlon was raised in Quebec. Her father was a woodcarver. Her daughter still   
lives there, and enjoys helping her mother out in the holiday season by selling some of   
her dolls," MacDuff said.

Martin clutched at his original conviction that something was going on. "What about the   
powder? The mysterious white powder?"

"If you'd investigated a little further before deciding to play Dirty Harry, you would have   
noticed the holes in the Mountie's head. Apparently, the dolls are meant to serve as   
talcum powder dispensers."

"Talcum powder?" Bouchard repeated.

MacDuff moved a piece of paper exactly ten centimeters and repositioned it so it lined up   
precisely with the edge of his desk. "Under the circumstances, we've decided not to press   
charges on Mrs. Tamberlon. We have, however, sternly warned her to subsequently seek   
licensing approval for any souvenirs that may infringe on nationally-owned images. The   
case is solved. You two" - he grimaced- "are free to go. Please. Go. And, Martin, don't   
come back to the office for a week or so, all right?"

"But the paperwork," Martin said.

"I'll get Perkins to do the paperwork," MacDuff said.

"Perkins? He'll end by accidentally moving the office to Calgary."

"Right now," MacDuff said seriously, "I would welcome a move to Calgary."

"I don't believe it," Martin repeated, walking out of the station. His head felt fuzzy. "All   
the signs were there."

"Except for the one saying, _Support the Sunshine Nursing Home, Buy A  
Mountie!_," Bouchard said. "Apparently, that one blew away and got covered in slush   
a couple days ago."

"My career," Martin murmured.

"Listen to you! You sound like a straight-A student who's just gotten his first B. This is   
only a little mistake."

"A little mistake? We broke that man's bones! How is that in the Christmas spirit?"

"So he can be thankful we didn't just shoot him," Bouchard said.

"I was so sure," Martin said. "I thought I'd made the biggest bust ever."

"Well, they can't all be wild action chases," Bouchard said. "Look on the bright side!   
Didn't you want to be like Philip Marlowe?"

"Sure," Martin said.

"Well, there you go. We solved the mystery of the Mountie's talcum. And now we can   
both be home for Christmas."

"Joy," Martin said. He paused. "Do you want to come over for some eggnog before you   
head back? It's a long drive."

"Sure," Bouchard said. "Maybe you could invite Iris, huh?"

"Oh no. Not when the only available beds are ones I have to launder," Martin said. "You   
know, this did clear up one thing for me, though."

"What's that?"

"When I was a kid, what I really wanted for Christmas was a Rolling Rocket skateboard,"   
Martin said. "But my parents would never get me one because it was too dangerous. I bet   
Jonathan would like one, though."

"See? Already you're thinking outside the box," Bouchard said.

"With appropriate safety gear, of course," Martin said.

"Oh, of course."

"Kneecaps at least. And a helmet. And he'll have to promise not to do any of those   
flipping things. Do you think he'll need safety goggles?"

"For a moment, Martin, you were almost cool," Bouchard said. "I think we can count that   
as the greatest Christmas miracle of all."

_"For everyone out there who's phoned in to tell me what a dipshit I am for daring to  
dislike Christmas, I have to admit you're right. I have overlooked two of the most   
important facts of Christmas. You have all reminded me of the true, central fact of this   
day: that it's going to be over really soon. And the second fact? No matter how bad it   
gets- no matter how tired, or angry, or stressed out you might be, just remember-_

_"That's why we invented eggnog. Salut!"_

 


End file.
